


The Idiots Among Us

by Rainne



Series: Thank-You Fics [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, Humor, McDonald's, boys and bets, i'm probably not as funny as i think i am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: Boys and bets. That's it, that's the fic.Post-Civil War AU with no freezy-Bucky.





	The Idiots Among Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [james](https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts).



> This fic is part of my Thank-You Fics, so called because they have been written as thank-you gifts to people who have donated to my mother's cancer fund, which is helping to pay for my mother's cancer treatments.
> 
> If you would like to know more about my writing and my gift fics and how to get a Thank-You Fic of your own, please visit [this Tumblr post](http://rainnecassidy.tumblr.com/post/118466323344/please-help). Thanks.

Bucky had expected the target range to be empty when he arrived, since it's two in the morning local time, but it turns out that there is one occupant; Clint Barton is there, bow in hand, just in the process of nocking an arrow when Bucky enters the room. He nods in Bucky's direction before loosing the arrow, and Bucky nods back, crossing the room to seat himself on a bench by the lockers. He leans back against them and pulls a brown paper bag out of his gym bag.

Clint turns at the sound of the paper rattling. "What you got there?" he asks.

"Snack," Bucky replies, smirking slightly. "Went across town to the McDonalds. Got a Big Mac and some fries. We didn't have those things before, man, those are good burgers."

"Made of beef fat and sawdust," Clint replies automatically, before the scent of the food hits him. "Aw, man," he groans. "That's just mean; I want some."

"Go get some," Bucky replies, stuffing a few fries into his mouth.

"There is one McDonald's in this entire city and it's all the way across town in the foreign quarter," Clint whines. "C'mon, man." Bucky shakes his head, and Clint whines again. "Okay, okay, I tell you what - how about a challenge?"

Bucky stuffs a couple more fries into his mouth. "What kind of challenge?"

Clint wags his bow. "Shooting, of course," he replies. "Whoever misses the target first watches the other one eat."

Bucky considers for a minute. "No," he says shortly, pulling the hamburger box out of the bag.

Clint hasn't worked with Steve Rogers for however long it's been to not know exactly how to manipulate the situation to his favor. "Chicken?" he challenges.

Bucky stills. "Excuse me?"

"It's okay," Clint says casually, digging the knife in just a little bit. "I mean, I totally get it. It's been a long time, you're probably a little rusty, the arm's new and you haven't got all the squeaks out of it yet -"

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Bucky replies, opening the box and stuffing the burger into his mouth. "You're not psyching me out of my fucking snack, I'm starving."

Clint's shoulders droop a little bit. "Damn," he says. "That would've worked with Rogers."

"Sure it would have," Bucky replies. "Rogers is a fuckin' idiot. I'm not. That's the big difference between me and him."

Clint studies Bucky for a long moment before nodding. "I see that," he says. And he does. Bucky's definitely colder and more calculating than Steve, and Clint doesn't think it's a new trait. He thinks that's been there since before the ice. "Never mind, then," he says, pulling a new arrow out.

"Hold up," Bucky replies around a mouthful of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, and cheese. "I didn't say I wasn't up for your challenge. I just said you weren't getting my food."

Clint pauses, raising an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah, because I ain't a fuckin' chicken, and I sure as shit ain't scared of you. I been sharpshooting since before your grandpa talked your grandma into sneakin' out behind the movie house, kid; you ain't gonna get the best of me."

"All right," Clint replies, grinning now. "What are the stakes?"

"Loser gets off his lazy ass and goes across town to the foreign quarter and gets the winner another hamburger," Bucky replies, snaking a pickle out of the bun and popping it into his mouth solo.

"Another?" Clint repeats. "Pretty sure of yourself there, aren't you? You know I never miss."

Bucky smirks. "I know what happens when a fella starts believing his own P.R. slogans, that's for sure," he replies. He waves one hand flat through the air in illustration of a banner. "The Amazing Hawkeye, never misses a shot! Today and tomorrow only, at Carson's!"

Clint's jaw drops. "How did you know that?"

"I know all kinds of things," Bucky replies. He taps his temple. "Massive data-dumps of potentially useful information. They topped me up on all the Avengers after they realized you were working together on the down-low, right before Insight."

"Well, that's only moderately terrifying," Clint replies, running a hand across his recently-shorn hair. He considers. "Did they have anything about -"

"Nothing on the wife and kids," Bucky assures him. "Didn't even know they existed until Natasha brought 'em here. Don't worry; they got nothing on them."

Clint blows out a long breath. "Okay," he says softly. "That's - that's okay, then."

Bucky nods, and finishes the rest of his food in the ensuing silence. Once he's done, he crumples up the wrappers and drops them into the bag, then crumples up the bag and makes a three-point shot across the room into the wastebasket. "All right," he says. "Since you're challenging, I'm picking the first weapon." He points across the room at the door to the weaponry supply closet. "There's a pair of Mauser Model 66 Ps in there. We'll start with those."

Clint grins, trotting over to the closet - a hilarious misnomer, as the range's armory is at least sixteen-hundred square feet - and ducking inside to go looking for the guns in question. He returns a few minutes later with only one. "Other one's missing a couple of important parts," he tells Bucky. "We can share this one. You wanna go first?"

Bucky shrugs, then holds up one hand. "Roshambo you for it."

"Actual roshambo, or the kind where you kick the other guy in the nuts?" Clint asks, taking a step back.

Bucky laughs. "Actual roshambo, but I'm filing that away; I might need to use it against fucking Rogers one of these days. He never sees the nut-shot coming."

"I've noticed that," Clint agrees, holding up his own fist. They count off, one-two-three, and Clint throws scissors while Bucky throws paper. Clint smirks, moving to the nearest booth. He swaps out the paper target, sending it to the end of the range, and then checks and adjusts the sight on the rifle. Once he's set, he finds his stance, takes a breath and lets it out, and he takes his shot. It goes beautifully right through the precise center of the bulls-eye. He straightens up and smirks at Bucky, handing the rifle over with a certain pardonable smugness.

Bucky rolls his eyes, walks up to the line, and checks the scope. He makes a tiny adjustment, breathes once, and fires. Clint presses the button for the target, and when it arrives, there is only one hole in the paper; Bucky's bullet has passed directly through the hole Clint's left, without so much as burning the torn edges of the paper. 

"Holy shit," Clint says softly. 

Bucky cocks an eyebrow. "You never seen anybody do that before?"

"No, I mean, I have," Clint replies. "Just not that many, and not cold on an unfamiliar weapon."

Bucky smirks. "Who says it's unfamiliar?" he asks. "Man, haven't you figured out yet that if there's a gun they made between 1945 and Insight, I've probably trained on it?"

"That so?" Clint replies. "Well, then, I think we ought to make this more of a challenge."

"Okay," Bucky replies, leaning against the wall with a slight grin. "I'm listening."

Clint retrieves his bow and holds it out to Bucky. "You take my weapon, and I'll take yours."

"Oh-ho," Bucky replies. "That is a challenge. I don't think I've ever actually used one of these things before."

"Then let me show you how before Rogers beats my ass for letting you get bruises on that pretty face," Clint replies. He takes the bow back, sends the target back down to the end of the range, and demonstrates a stance. "Stand like this," he says. "Nock the arrow, pull back - make sure to keep your arm straight, see? Aim, and fire." 

"Sure, I can do that," Bucky replies. "Let me get a couple of practice shots in."

"Wash your hands first," Clint tells him. "I don't want fry grease on my bow string."

Laughing softly, Bucky goes to wash his hands. When he comes back, he takes the bow from Clint and lets Clint guide him into position. It takes him a few tries - his first shot hilariously travels all of three feet - but once he gets the hang of it, he makes the string sing.

And is immediately dismayed to see the arrow sticking out of the wall beside the target. "Shit," he says softly. 

"Oh," Clint says. "That... might be more of a challenge than we're looking for here."

"Yeah," Bucky agrees. "I might need a week or so to practice with this thing before it's anything close to fair. Got any better ideas?"

Clint thinks about it for a minute, tapping his chin with one finger, and then he grins. "Yeah, actually, I do."

"I'm all ears," Bucky replies.

A few minutes later, they're out of the practice range and crossing the palace grounds. "There's a second range," Clint explains as they pace across the darkened lawn, the sounds of the city from one side shading into the sounds of the wilderness from the royal nature preserve on the other, and Bucky is fairly certain there's some kind of big cat pacing them just inside the preserve as they reach the huge sandstone building where the Dora Milaje train.

Bucky quirks an eyebrow as the woman standing guard at the door tightens her grip on the spear in her hand. It looks like a fragile ceremonial weapon, but Bucky can see the light gleam off the blade and he's fairly certain she could take his testicles off with it and never break a sweat. Clint gives a password, though, and the woman nods, stepping back and letting them pass through the wide double doors.

Inside, Bucky abruptly remembers what it feels like to be a kid in a candy store with money to spend. The training arena - for that's what it is - is huge, and designed to simulate the city itself, a crammed urban area shading into the thickness of jungle with barely four feet of separation between the two zones. The buildings inside the arena are a mix of ancient, old, new, and highly modern, just like the city itself, and are even organized in a simulation of the wall-divided quarters of the city. Bucky finds the closest access and makes his way to the top of a wall, shading his eyes against the simulated sunlight and staring around. "This is fantastic." He looks down at Clint. "How's it stack up against the Avenger facilities in New York?"

"Tony Stark would shit himself with rage and jealousy," Clint says simply.

Bucky laughs. "Perfect." He spends a few minutes looking around carefully, taking in the lay of the theater and the way things work. "Okay," he says finally. "You've been in here before; how do we pop the targets?"

"There's a program we can run where they pop on their own," Clint explains. "It's random, and it changes every time, so you can't get complacent in a pattern. Or there's also an option to choose targets once we get into position. I'll show you."

"Okay," Bucky says. "How do we know who hit which target?"

"We use their weapons," Clint replies. He guides Bucky into a building near the entrance to the theater, which serves as a supply depot. It's full of paintball gear. "I figure we use different colors, then we can work it out from there."

"Yeah, okay," Bucky agrees. He finds the ammunition and chooses red; Clint comes behind him and takes purple. "Where should we start?"

They head back out onto the street, and Clint looks around for a few moments. Finally he points to a bell tower halfway up the block. "Top of the tower?"

Bucky nods. "Meet you there."

As they race one another to the top of the tower - Bucky across the rooftops and Clint on the ground for the first several hundred feet before also leaping up to the rooftops - Steve slips into a hidden vantage point and offers a paper bag and cup to T'challa. "Did I miss anything?"

"Not yet," T'challa replies, taking bag and cup, setting the cup aside and opening the bag to release the scent of hot, greasy fried potato into the air. He grins, popping a few fries into his mouth. "They're just moving to the first location."

"Excellent," Steve says, settling in and pulling a box of Chicken McNuggets out of his own bag. "Then it'll be a couple minutes of 'off the railing, over the bridge, nothing but net' and hopefully a good two hours of quality entertainment before one or the other of them remembers the concierge."

T'challa grins, offering Steve a toast with his cup of cold Coke. "To idiots," he says.

Steve grins back, tapping the side of his Coke against T'challa's before taking a long drink. "To idiots."


End file.
